Denise Lee Porter

I started really taking a hard look at health insurance when I became self-employed (OK I was laid off and couldn’t afford COBRA). The cheapest thing that I could find was a $250.00 per month plan with a $10,000 deductible. If I wanted dental, vision, prescription and all that jazz I would have had to pay extra for an addition to that plan or a separate plan altogether.

I also considered an HSA, you know that tax free thing that you can use to buy aspirin, but God forbid you should lose the receipt? The HSA would have been in addition to the $250 insurance plan and I would have used it to pay for dental, vision, prescription drugs, and doctor visits.

Long story short, I could not afford to pay that much per month for what amounted to simple assurance that if something really, really bad happened we would be covered. I have a young and healthy family , and we only go to the doctor and dentist for our once a year check ups. Therefore, it made no sense for me to pay $250+ per month for something that doesn’t cost $250 for a year.

The insurance model that I was looking at (low cost, high deductible plan with a Health Savings account) is one part of what is called Consumer Driven Health Care. There are 3 levels to a CDHC type plan -

1. The tax exempt HSA account to be used as stated above
2. The out of pocket payments that you will make when you have run out of HSA money, but haven’t met your deductible yet
3. And of course the high deductible insurance policy

Consumer Driven Health Care should be a way for consumers to have choices as far as how much to pay for health care and when to pay it.

For example - since I rarely go to the dentist, I should be able to make a (very) small monthly payment, and when I do visit the dentist I could then pay a reasonable out-of-pocket expense for the services I receive.